Recently, one of my friends has observed that populistic materials with regard to the ‘transport’ protesting of the activists have become more in our newspaper. If we are talking about the journalistic populism, fixed-run minivans, to this respect, are not the best topics; to obtain a reader one should write about Kim Kardashian, or, in extreme case, about the stars of the Armenian show business. But, my reader probably meant the perception of political populism, a phenomenon, which, as a rule, rather hinders, than helps to solve the problems.
I imagine the populism in politics in the following way. Suppose you must get from point A to point B, let’s say, from Zovuni to Yerevan, to the PressBuilding. He who imagines the distance and has passed it, to be honest with the interlocutors, will say that this distance can be passed by car in 20-30 minutes, depending on the jams. Theoretically, one can not also rule out that you have your own helicopter, which will land you off on the roof of the Press building in 5 minutes. The populist, however, will tell you that he has a magic ring that you will put on you in Zovuni and a moment later you will take it off from your finger in your office in the Press building. The populist, thus, does not want to see the distance between the objective and the means and presents it in extremely easy, declarative and demagogic way.
“The government to the workers”, “the land to the farmers”, “the factories to the workers”. Sounds wonderful. Bolsheviks knew how to seduce masses. All the pain, however, is that these slogans are utopian, the property and the power can belong only to individuals (in spite of populistic declarations of our and many other countries’ constitutions). Simply, the remaining population in normal countries compels these individuals not to excess and know their limits, and we so far cannot compel our individuals to do so.
“Transport fare should never be raised”, this is a populism. Approximate like “no inch of land to the enemy.” But, the fare should be raised legally, the municipality must explain in a clear, convincing way as to what we are paying for (like in the case of ‘parking’), and also convince us that there is no conflict of interest, and that private owners are not disguised officials. I think these are reasonable, realistic requirements, and there is no populism here.
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In fact, it is noteworthy that today an anti-populist Prime Minister is working, the former co-partisan of 90s super populists: Arshak Sadoyan, Seyran Avagyan, and David Vardanyan.
Aram Abrahamyan
